sloanspace

Quote and 300-word response based on the book you’re reading.

This week we’ll begin using Google Reader to collect feeds from news sources, blogs, and other media. You’ll need a Google Account if you don’t have one yet. Here’s a link to the instructions for Using Google Reader.  Not sure what RSS and Readers are?  Watch this Common Craft show on RSS.

News Sense: The Building Blocks of News
Explores the who, what, when, where, why and how of news coverage.

Cleaning Your Copy
An introduction to AP style, including common errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation.

The “Be A Reporter” Game
An interactive and short virtual experience designed to teach you reporting basics.

Get Me Rewrite: The Craft of Revision
Revision is key to the writing process, a skill that every good writer must learn.

The Interview
Effective interviewing can make or break a story. Learn how to prepare for and conduct a good interview.

The Writer’s Workbench: 50 Tools You Can Use
Classic writing instruction from Poynter’s vice president and senior scholar Roy Peter Clark.

The Lead Lab
Learn the basics of writing leads and what type of lead works best on different kinds of stories.

Language of the Image
An introduction to the elements of photojournalism with plenty of examples. This course will help you see what makes a compelling photograph.

Community Service Photojournalism: Lessons from a Contest (2005)
and Lessons from a Contest (2006)
Examine award-winning work and hear commentary from photojournalists and judges. Make sure you read the captions.

In class today, we began describing the different identities we have, the different roles in our lives.  For instance, I have relationship/biological roles (like husband, father, son, brother), and I have identities that come from my vocation (teacher) and avocations (amateur musician, ex-athlete, gardener).  For homework write a paragraph about each of your identites.

The profile of your partner (that’s based on the Brady’s Bit feature in Parade magazine) is due Monday. If you don’t have a photo of your partner, find an image that represents them.

For Monday, read chapter 1 & 2 in Frames of Mind.  Think about what it means to be literate today.  Use the CD that’s in the book to do that activities for visual learning.

For tomorrow’s class bring a picture of you.  If you don’t have any photos of yourself, bring an image that represents you or your interests.

A special thanks to Christopher, Jeff, Heather, Kate, Natalie, Jake, and Nafisa for volunteering to read their first piece of writing today. Their writing illustrated the following traits of good writing:

• strong imagery
• honesty
• vivid verb and adjective choice
• alliteration
• dialogue and interior monologue
• a thesis statement
• wisdom
• telling details
• parallel structure

Homework for Thursday: Bring your free-reading book to class.